1. Field of the Invention:
The invention in general relates to fluid flow measurements and particularly to a system for measuring volumetric flow rates in a pipe.
2. Description of the Prior Art:
Various systems exist for measuring volumetric flow rate in a fluid carrying conveyance. For many uses of such systems accuracy is of prime consideration in that an error, for example, of one percent in fluid flow measurement can represent many thousands of dollars. Accurate knowledge of volumetric flow rate is required for situations such as metering water to communities, measuring efficiency of various hydroelectric equipment, sewage treatment plants, and oil pipeline monitoring to name a few.
A highly accurate flow meter system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,564,912. That system utilizes pairs of transducers installed at the boundary of a fluid conveyance so as to form parallel acoustic paths, and measurements taken in these several acoustic paths indicative average fluid velocity times path length are combined according to a numerical integration technique to compute volumetric flow.
The present invention describes an alternate arrangement for use specifically with circular pipes with an integration scheme based on direct measurement of path velocity.